This month, our Member newsletter offers details about our most recent royalty distribution and provides updates about Phono 3 royalties, royalties for a previously unreported offering from Tidal that we processed in this month’s distribution, and our redesigned Individual Works Registration Tool. We’ve also included a reminder for our Class B voting Members. As always, thank you for taking the time to read our updates each month.

The MLC completed its eighth royalty distribution of the year on August 14, bringing us to 41 total royalty distributions since we began full operations — all of which were completed on time or early. August’s distribution primarily covered newly reported usage that took place in May of 2024. The total of all royalty pools reported to The MLC for this cycle was approximately $83.0 million.

Every month our team attempts to match the newly reported sound recording uses we receive to the musical works data in our public database and then distributes the resulting matched royalties to our Members. This month, we were able to match more than 81 percent of the total royalty pools reported to us by DSPs to songs registered in our database.

After deducting royalties for usage covered by voluntary licenses maintained by DSPs with rightsholders, we collected approximately $79.8 million in royalties and distributed approximately $56.9 million to our Members.

To learn more about our August 2024 distribution, click here:

Since April, we have been distributing matched historical royalties in sets. For each set of royalties from a given DSP (or DSPs), we first distribute matched historical royalties for previously unpaid uses reported by the DSP (or DSPs) concerned, and then we aim to distribute matched historical royalties for previously partially paid uses from that same DSP (or DSPs) in the following month.

This month, we distributed $24.2 million in new matched historical royalties. The majority of this amount ($23.7 million) related to the first set of matched historical royalties from the Phono 3 period for uses on Spotify that took place in 2018 and 2019. The remaining amount consists of matched historical royalties from the Phono 3 period for uses that took place primarily on four other digital services: Apple Music, Pandora, Soundcloud and YouTube.

To read more about the historical unmatched royalties we have distributed so far, click here:

In February, Tidal notified The MLC that it had been making available — but not reporting to The MLC — an interactive, Free-to-the-User Offering called “interactive,” which was only available to end users via the Tidal website. Tidal indicated that it had been making this offering since November of 2021, but planned to discontinue it in April of 2024. Tidal Interactive was not prominently featured on Tidal’s website and, to The MLC’s knowledge, Tidal did not advertise or otherwise market it.

Upon learning of this interactive offering from Tidal, The MLC worked with Tidal to ensure that Tidal delivered all of the outstanding usage reports and unpaid royalties (including late fees) for this service offering. These royalties and late fees were included in the royalty statements and payments for the August distribution. You may have noticed a number of additional line items for “royalties earned” in prior months on the Payment Activity Statements that you received in August. Most of these line items for royalties earned in prior months represent the outstanding royalties from Tidal for this service offering. As always, if you have any questions about any of your Payment Activity Statements or Royalty Statements, please contact our Support Team.

We’re excited to announce that we have redesigned the Individual Works Registration Tool in The MLC Portal! The new tool is more streamlined, making it easier than ever for you to register individual new songs using this tool. We have also added more tooltips to help guide you through the registration process. If you have songs to register, log in to The MLC Portal today to check out the new version of this tool.

Voting began on August 20 for the two Publisher Director seats up for election this year. While the Librarian of Congress appoints all Directors, eligible Class B Members (who consist of independent music publishers) can participate in a voting process to recommend candidates for the Director seats that represent them on The MLC’s Board of Directors. Ballots were sent out to eligible Class B Members via an email sent by Votenet Solutions/eBallot. If you have any questions about this process, please contact legal@themlc.com. The voting period ends on September 20, and the results will be announced at our Annual Meeting this fall.

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